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Feb 18, 2012

Saturday, Feb 18, 2012, Barry C. Silk

Theme: Saturday Silk

Words: 72

Blocks: 30

I was mighty tired when I started this puzzle, so I was probably not as sharp as I could have been - but still finished in my allotted time, with only one sneak peek to check if I had a letter correct; I did notice that NONE of the clues were punctuated with a question mark, meaning that there were no "punny" or tongue-in-cheek mis-directing clues today. I thought it was about time we had a puzzle from Barry, too. Quite the "regular" grid, too, only a couple of triple stacks of nines, but four "bears" of (tough to fit) twelve-letter answers, two Across, and two Down, with two 10's as well;

25A. Literally, "may you have the body" : HABEAS CORPUS - legal term; I will let the lawyers handle this one

42A. Last man* to walk on the moon : EUGENE CERNAN- When I saw "GENE", I thought it was the Flight Director of Apollo 13, but he is GENE KRANZ; I'll bet this one was a gimme for Husker Gary

6D. Subject of the 2004 documentary "American Beer" : CRAFT BREWERY - in college, my roommate tried brewing his own; the process was sloppy, but the beer was super strong; two bottles and you were stumbling about

11D. Indication that money is involved : DOLLAR SIGN - This "$" thing, not the look on some competitor's faces who are about to lose their shirts.

25D. David* with the autobiography "Making Waves" : HASSELHOFF - "The Hoff" - I grew up with him as "Michael Knight", the man who drove K.I.T.T. - that talking Trans Am of the mid-80's, not the lifeguard dude of Baywatch (gag). The Hoff is big in Germany, and he gained some notoriety with his drunken off-camera behavior; also had a stint as a judge on America's Got Talent.

Mr. Silk gave us just enough to finish the puzzle, but there were a LOT of names in this one, both in the clues and answers (*), and I figure you either know them, or you don't

Onward~!

Across:

1. Black-and-white prowlers : SQUAD CARS - I knew this was a police reference, but we don't call them "squad" cars; here they're Cruisers, so this took longer than needed

10. Hit the hay, say : IDIOM - I had AXIOM, but a 12-letter word starting with "X" ??

26. Miss by __ : A MILE - I was thinking it was "close", like "A HAIR", or "A NOSE" - nope, a really bad shot

27. Immaculate : PURE

28. Orsk's river : URAL

29. Hatch* and others: Abbr. : SENatorS

30. Feet-first Olympic event : LUGE - looks terrifying (she's doing 74.07mph), but I would love to try it; recall the fatal accident at the Vancouver Olympics. I am planning on a mini-vacation to Frost Valley next weekend; if there is snow, I will go "tubing" - the last time I went, the top layer of snow had frozen, and you could generate quite a lot of speed

31. Not worth __ : A SOU - French coin, 'nuff said

32. Compressed video file format : MPEG

36. HMO members : DOCtorS

39. Brightest star in Scorpius : ANTARES - I got this one; I love studying the stars. This refers to the fact that it rivals the redness of the planet Mars, which in Greek is "ARES"

41. Highly hyped N.L. pitcher Stephen Strasburg*, for one : NATional - I defer to our C.C. (From C.C.: This guy was the most hyped and slam-dunk pick in draft history. His agent is Scott Boras, who also represented A-Rod, Prince Fielder, Barry Zito, etc.)

43. Changes chemically : REACTS

46. "100 years of skin care for life" brand : NIVEA

47. Drifts : ROVES - the verb, not the noun - I could go for some snow drifts; doesn't feel like winter to me

48. Eerie meeting site : CRYPT - I read this as ERIE, and tried CANAL at first....

49. It has a separate men's store opposite its main store in Chicago : SAKS

81 comments:

This took a long time and required some cheating! Perhaps I was just toooo tired. Anyway, some names to obscure. Also, still do not understand-- ANGELS.

Had a very lenghty vascular ultrasound exam today. Very painful. Back killing me. The technician could not be bothered to get a pillow for my back from another room. (The place was practically deserted.)

This one proved to be too much for me in the end as well. QUBIT crossing ABERNATHY was nasty, but I finally guessed correctly. Also had to guess that "Caleb" was a SPY and that there was a river named RUHR (I thought that was just the name of a region in Germany). Again, though, I was able to get it done.

Did not know EUGENE CERNAN,although I probably should have.

What really killed me, though, was the SE section. I wanted LIP for 52A and just could not accept GAS without turning on the red letter help. That's just not an IDIOM I am familiar with and it just seems wrong. Did not know Miss DIOR or NIVEA. Didn't know who GENA Showalter was/is, either. Couldn't get TECH SAVVY to save my life, especially since I was convinced the clue was tricky and the answer was going to be spider related. Etc., etc., etc. I finally turned on the red letter help and guessed randomly in spots...

I should have guessed that this was a Saturday Silkie. I got pieces of it here and there, and Mr. Silk gave me just enough traction to fill in the holes in my grid.

Like Barry G. I had LIP before GAS and I incorrectly wagged AEC for NRC. But I new DW uses NIVEA and Ms Evert had a BACK HAND SHOT, so everything finally came together...and with 5 minutes of self-allotted solving time still on the clock!

Another Saturday Silkie a few sports references a few foriegn words a few legal terms a few obscure clues and a few gimmies that are so easy you just want to kick yourself when you figure them out because you were sure it was a trick question.

Ferma, like Barry's son my little boy(not so little almost as tall as my wife) can be a brat when he does not get what he wants (like when the patriots loose[where did i go wrong raisinga patriots fan in eagles country]) but he can be the exact opposite i.e a perfect angel when he wants something. enjoy the rest of the long weekend monday is presidents day

This Silky was a great work-out. but fun. My biggest hang up was seeing GULF instead of GUFF. I wagged GINA for52D instead of Lina, so I correctly wrote GAS but didn't know why until I came here.GAS and GUFF are both nouns that mean foolish or empty talk; nonsense.

Just a few letters gave me Abernathy. I was interested in the Civil Rights movement when I was young.

Our newspapers use squad car, cruiser, and patrol car interchangably.

I DNF due to LA(M)ARR, (M)PEG. I had only heard of JPEG. LA JARR did not make sense. V8 moment. I should have gone through the alphabet to replace the J.

Chickie and Lucina, I am sending healing thoughts for your pain.

Argyle from last night. Of course you are correct about yarrow/ Queen Annes's lace. We have tons of Queen Anne's lace here.

Finished this puzzle with great effort, but upon checking my answers i noticed I didn't change craft brewer(s) to (y)...just a little sloppy I guess. Nailed "tech savvy" and "east coast" right away which greatly helped the SE. Overall fun and challenging.

Slow going today. Those thick 12-letter sandwiches were tough to get through. Had to Goog ABERNATHY to break the ice there, I never heard of the guy. Had ROAMS for drifts in the SE, that didn't help. I knew NIVEA but struggled to recall it.

Add me to the list of the butt-kickees. Struggled to get all but the NW and SE filled, then had to resort to goog for Abernathy, Gena, Nivea and Cernan. That provided enough perps to fill the rest, but this goes down as a serious humbling for me. Interesting, but too difficult to say it was "fun".

Dudley, it's not Guff in the religious (hall of souls) sense. Instead it's "Don't give me any GUFF about that!" Could just as easily be LIP or GAS.

Finally got around to watching Thursday's Jeopardy! and realized where that whole DON/DAWN discussion started. Where I grew up in the upper Midwest they were different pronunciations, just as Argyle described last night. On the other hand MERRY/MARRY/MARY were all pronounced the same. My college phonetics instructor showed me the error of my ways.

Tough one today. Got all the center across and SW without too much HASSLE. Finally got the NW, SMAZE?, and the NE. Great clue for IDIOM. Had to invoke red letter aid with SOC to finish off the SE. Some deep WAGS: ANTARES, COSMO, and others. RUHR was an educated guess as was URAL. Even though Barry's clues tend to be obscure on Saturday, usually the fill is something I have heard of. Good job as usual.

Man, usually I enjoy a Barry Silk puzzle. Rarely finish them but they are enjoyed. If it hadn't been for knowing I could come here and learn something, I'd have given up on this one. Maybe it was last night's Margaritas but I don't think so. I still dont get SMAZE!

Good morning, Splynter, C.C. and gang - great fun today with the latest Silkie. A nice leisurely solve with a lot of the same problems already mentioned, and also several learning moments. I was pleased with myself that I knew Gene Cernan, but there were others, i.e. Gena Showalter, where I needed all the perps.

Lucina my right knee started hurting pretty good the past couple weeks, so I got it xrayed and it's bone-on-bone on one side of it. Doc recommended a cortisone shot, which can last for close to a year. I said I'd think about it, and then he showed me the needle they use, which looks like a stage prop for a Three Stooges bit. Thing's freaking enormous!Anyway, good luck with your knee, and if you get the shot, DON'T LOOK!

Happy birthday Lois! I'm sure it's nice to have a day off from school to celebrate.

Regarding Don/Dawn, my wife was always amused when one of her students would ask to borrow a pin. They wanted something to write with but pronounced pen as pin. I guess it must be a southern California thing.

I was heading to a record time with this onestarting in the NE corner clockwise to the NW.corner where I hit a wall.I couldn't let go of Microbrewery at 6D to savemy life , with the exception of Use me at 3Dand Ete at 22A I had nothing filled in

Silkie is definitely a noun. i had: hit the hay=SLEEPBrats Opp=SAINTSsurgical tool=LASER (and many more)& only one perp in each to show i was wrong which led to some major cheating just to get to the Blog for learning moments.

Can't wait for Lois to check in...

Meanwhile, since NRC was in there somewhere, i wonder what they would think of THIS

My necrosis of the knee was created during house renovations. My wife threw my daughters drawings into the fully loaded dumpster, & she was so upset that i tried to retrieve them. When i could not climb into it, i tried to open it. Big mistake! The door was held closed by a pole that latches into a clip, when i lifted it from the clip, the weight of the refuse forced the door open causing the pole to swing 180 degrees. It hit my knee like a baseball bat...

Long Story short,,,not only did i have that shot, they used the same needle to remove contaminated fluid first. Quite honestly, i did not hurt that much, and i have been much better for years since, but at the time you would not have known that from my screaming...

I thought I had gotten fairly good at conquering Saturday Silkies, but this one very nearly did me in. Things went very well except in the NW and SE corners. The NW finally came together, and most of the SE, but I had put in DOE instead of NRC (yes, I know 'energy' wouldn't be in the clue and answer, but I put it in anyway) and that gave me Elm St for that eerie place to meet. I knew DADO was solid, was pretty sure SHOT was the correct ending for BACKHAND and was pretty sure that 55a started with TECH (after giving up on getting anything to work with 'arachnids'.

I finally put it aside, did the Saturday Sudoku and the commuter crossword, went to the gym, came back, picked it up again, took one look, changed my wrong entries to NRC and CRYPT and filled my eight empty squares. I swear there must be a crossword solving program running in the background in my brain. Almost every time I'm stumped on one and walk away, i can come back later and easily finish.

Here in Boston, Don and Dawn are pronounced the same as well. Mary/merry/marry, however, all have different sounds. Mary has a long "a" to rhyme with "fairy." Marry has a short "a" to rhyme with "bad." And Merry has a short "e" sound to rhyme with "bed."

As I've traveled throughout the U.S. and Canada, people insist on pronouncing my name a if it were spelled "Berry" or "Barey." It's always nice to come back home and have people pronounce it correctly.

Grumpy1, I've found that method to work for almost any problem. When you "hit the wall" you need to walk away and think/do something else. Your subconscious brain keeps working on the problem. When you return to it, it's suddenly solveable.

Splynter, I saw 4D "Razor handle" ATRA as using the CBer inspired "handle" as slang for "name" rather than being just a part of an ATRA razor.

Irish Miss, I've tried my hand at a few themed puzzles. I have no idea how constructors pull off these non-themed monsters. I wouldn't even know where to start. I think there's some magical formula that is known only to and guarded jealously by a few of the elite constructors.

Took me quite some time today, but eventually got there. Some new stuff for me (QUBIT, SMAZE).

Nice write-up, Splynter, hope you got some rest afterwards.

Now - Summons/MUSTERS UP - can someone help me with an example usage here? I can see "Let's summon/muster up the troops", or "the group was summoned/mustered up", but how would I use precisely summons/musters up? I'm probably being Saturday-morning dumb here, but I truly can't think of a usage that would work.

Splynter - in the UK there was a popsicle brand called "Mivvi". That's the only VV I can come up with off the top of my head.

As kids, we also used "guff" as a synonym for - ahem - gas in the bodily-emanation sense.

Hello everybody. Holy wow, this was a very hard puzzle today. I could not finish it without looking up some of the names.

Like Zcarguy, I wanted microbrewery. I also wanted back hand grip.

After mentally listing various North Carolina locales in my mind, such as Hatteras, the Outer Banks, Raleigh-Durham, etc., I felt a little bit let down by EAST COAST. Heck, New Jersey, for example, has an east coast, too. So I didn't really see EAST COAST as being a locale associated specifically with North Carolina.

Wanted SON for Caleb. At least I knew NIVEA, for some reason. And I nailed EDITH Head.

Barry giveth and Barry taketh away. HABEAS CORPUS was a big toehold but I was at KITTY HAWK in NC with PSY instead of SOC. No one else thought of that? Oh well, a good time was had by all.

Musings-Yup, Gene Cernan was a gimme and I have heard this dynamic man speak!-I knew what prowlers Barry wanted and toyed with CROWN VIC-NRC not AEC. New atomic plants coming in GA. Even a Chevy Volt has to get power somewhere.-The point of no return for the Moon missions was very near the Moon where Lunar gravity superseded Earth’s-The 1930’s movies on TCM pronounce Mary with a very extreme accent that sounds pretentious to me along with dahling-The light from Antares you see tonight left there about the time Columbus set sail to spend Queen Isabella’s money

Dennie and Lucina,I had that a cortisone shot with the wicked needle in my left knee last June. It was not at all pleasant, but it brought blessed reilef until the end of October.

My surgery showed diintegrated cartilage and a torn menisces in the left knee. I'll let you know the prognosis on Wed. It didn't hurt at all post op becasue I was inactive. I am still taking it easy, but now as I bend and twist I really do feel it.

I feel for all of you. Salut!

BTW No wonder many of you can not hear the difference we find in DON and DAWN. I read that those people raised without that particular vowel sound do not hear it, even when it is articulated perfectly. That explains why my pronunciation of foreign languages is not nearly exact and why it takes years, if at all, for most foreign born to speak English or other languages like a native.

Good afternoon Splynter, CC, et al., Just want to thank you all for the sweet happy birthday wishes. I tried doing the puzzle earlier after I regained consciousness but kept getting interrupted w/phone calls, text msgs, and the door bell ringing with flower deliveries. I think I must be dying and everyone knows it but forgot to tell me. The front room looks and smells like a funeral parlor. I'll fool 'em by crackie! I'm gonna out live 'em all and out play each one of 'em. Gotta go. Pool game starts in 30 mins. Gotta go bust some balls.. I mean that only in the kindest way.

Dennis; if you were one of my candles, I'd make sure you were the one that would automatically relight. Party on!

Irish Miss- The most difficult thing in creating a themed puzzle is coming up with a fresh, clever, entertaining theme. The fill can be a bear at times, but it's usually not that hard to do. A non-themed Saturday type puzzle is by far much harder to create because of all the open space to fill. Notice how we see the same constructors on Saturday. It's because most constructors just don't want to deal with the frustration and time to make a Saturday puzzle.

QUBIT- ArQ measurement

In IN TOO DEEP lies a response given by most of us graybeards.DO I PEE? NOT!

Jayce, My one time meeting in a Crypt was at a funeral. It was cold, echoed, and was generally eerie! Nuf said.

Husker, I had both Kitty Hawk and Psy at first. Fixed with the perps, but I couldn't think of anything else that fit any better.

Yellowrocks, Thanks for the good thoughts, and good luck with your appointment on Wednesday.

Fermatprime, Good luck to you, too, with the outcome of your ultrasound exam.

For those of you who are wondering about CA, she has moved to her new home and her last Dr.'s appointment was only about 10 minutes away. She and her DH were spending upwards of four hours round trip to see the Docs and it was at least once a week. She is also close to her family, now. I'm sure she'll be back into the swing of things soon. As you all know it takes a LONG time to get everything in place when you move.

Whoo-hoo! I finished todays puzzle! True, I had to look several things up. Like othes, I couldnt let go of MICROBREWERY, but I also was sure of SQUADCAR. Looked in the deep recesses of my brain and remembered Ralph ABERNATHY, and EUGENE CERNAN. Bye bye MICRO. Last to fall was the SE corner. Looked up GENA Showalter, that gave me enough to fill in the rest. Whew, my brain is tired!

Argyle & Yellowrocks: You are probably right about QAL and Yarrow. We had QAL growing in the pasture, identified by my husband, which I dug up and brought to my yard flower bed. Later I had yarrow I bought at a nursery. They looked alike to me except for color: QAL-white, yarrow-yellow.

The only first entry I didn't erase today was SQUADCARS. My patience didn't last long enough to finish. Silk always does me in. Thanks, Splynter.

Jayce: You "nailed" Edith Head? You naughty boy!

Lois: HBD! Ole! Ole! Ole!

I went to an interment in a big crypt. No chairs, so we stood during a long-winded preacher. They had the coffin on one of those telescoping catafalques. The 3-yr.-old granddaughter of the deceased kept escaping and playing on the base of it. I was afraid it would collapse on her. Or grandpa would rise up and smite her parents! I wanted to.

I always enjoy a Saturday Silkie but this one was far from smooth! I got a lot of it filled in but it was slow going. I had many of the same struggles mentioned by others but was really stymied by SQUADCARS. I was thinking of skunks "prowling" around trash cans ... sigh. Only after finally looking up QUBIT did I get that corner. I also had to look up ZIMA and GENA. I had LOTS of erasures but it finally came together.

~~ Thank you, Splynter, for filling in the missing pieces ... I discovered two errors after reading your write-up! I agree with "ya know it or ya don't" on all the names today.

~~ I, too, was held up by the Guff/ Lip/GAS thing in that section.

~~ Lucina ~~ I thought of you with both SASHAY and LALA. :-)

~~ Happy Birthday, Lois ... hope the year brings you much happiness ... in all ways!